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Imagine your name is Steve
As in Steve Jobs. Head honcho at Apple Computers.

Imagine you're in a shareholders meeting and you've just made a statement. A statement seemingly so dramatic, that for the first thirty-three seconds all you hear is dead silence. Then suddenly the shareholders go berserk. They start shouting. Some resort to swearing. Others give you the bird. A box containing Windows XP flies at you as you hastily duck behind the podium. Heck...this is nasty stuff.

And all this nastiness and frustration seemed to erupt when you made the mistake of saying that the Ipod was going to go after just one target audience.

One target audience?
What kind of fool talk is that? Oh yeah, we know all those darn marketers say that you should have just one audience. What do they know? Imagine trying to sell the Ipod to just teenagers. Or just travellers.

Of course we now know that the Ipod is literally a necessity with travellers, teenagers, fitness fanatics, students, business executives and yes even grandmas and grandpas. So did the Ipod break the rules of staying with one target audience? And how can you argue with one billion dollars in sales? Have all those marketing 'gurus' got their brains filled with sawdust?

Noooooo...That's not zee answer. Find out how the Ipod issue looked at 'target audience' in a different way. And how you can do not just the same, but actually do one better.

What's lesson 101 in marketing?
You gotta have a target audience. So the teacher asks you, "Do you have a target audience?" And you say, "Yes, Ma'am I do. My target audience is chemical companies, with 10-30 people who need help in their computer networking. And the teacher beams from earring to earring.

'You missed one thing, Ma'am'

For too long, we've learned that our target audience needs to be something tangible. Feel it. Touch it. Shake hands with the audience. As some bespectacled boffins would say: The Demographics of your audience.

The Ipod doesn't care much about the demographics
Nope. Them demographics are fine; son...but what you really need are some sharp-shootin' psychographics as well. Big words, eh pardner? So let's take them psychographics and mix them with some grits and you get a nice, fine bowl of emotion.

Irritation - a small word for Psychographics
Can you see the irritation running right through the IPod message? They're hitting on a very clear target audience that's not restricted to age or the type of person you are. They're targeting a problem. The problem of carrying 10,000 CDs in your pocket!

You see, I have an mp3 player but I don't have an IPod. So every time I travel, I've got to dump the old mp3s and put the new mp3s and then do that all over again, and again, and again. Two years ago, I was content with my CD Player. One year ago, I was ecstatic about my mp3 player. All I want for Christmas is the dang IPod! And Christmas is long gone, but my pain still remains.

And you, me -- we can all feel the ouch in our brains. Not all of us. Not you smug Ipod owners. Just us hillbilly folks who haven't got our hands on the IPod yet. Steve Jobs and his merry band of marketing experts ain't going after a '36 year old, Aucklander, with a weird sense of humour.